518 CEREMONY OP INITIATION. Chap. XXV. 



brating, with dancing and singing, a ceremony for two girls 

 of twelve or fourteen, analogous to the hoguera which among 

 the Bechuana and Makololo forms the young men into bands 

 or regiments for life. The Bechuana call it hoyale when the 

 novices are girls, and here the ceremony is named moari, 

 evidently a cognate word. These girls were dressed with a 

 profusion of beads, and painted over the head and face with 

 pipeclay, which gave them the appearance of wearing an 

 ancient helmet with chin-straps. The women were so eager 

 in the dance and in teaching their young protegees to 

 perform their part in it properly, that they paid no atten- 

 tion to the entreaties of the men to go and grind meal, 

 and clothe themselves with the cloth the strangers had 

 brought. Whence these customs, and from whom a number 

 of laws which are recognised for thousands of miles, have 

 been derived, no one can divine. They seem to have made 

 an indelible impression on the native mind, and abide in it 

 unchanged, from age to age. The boguera has something 

 of the Jewish ceremony of initiation, but it is a political, 

 not a religious institution. It cannot be traced to Arab 

 origin, and is spoken of, by those who have undergone it, 

 under the breath, and with a circumlocution which shows 

 that they regard it in a very serious light. 



On September loth we reached the top of the ascent 

 which, from its many ups and downs, had often made us puff 

 and blow as if broken-winded. The water of the streams we 

 crossed was deliciously cold, and now that we had gained the 

 summit at Ndonda, where the boiling-point of water showed 

 an altitude of 3440 feet above the sea, the air was delightful. 

 Looking back we had a magnificent view of the Lake, but 

 the haze prevented our seeing beyond the sea horizon. The 

 scene was beautiful, but it was impossible to dissociate the 

 lovely landscape whose hills and dales had so sorely tried 



